Oops. I am supposed to be writing things here, no? Unfortunately, I have been vitally occupied lately with the all-consuming task of being as LAME as can BE. I have been working a lot, slumping around in the rain, followed by grumping around in the hot and the sun, and being like the worst employee ever how DO I stay employed???, and flopping crankily around at home, going through my belongings in preparation for the move and keeping far too many of them. So many. So much stuff. What is wrong with us? Help help! So, it is probably just as well for you that I have refrained from commiting any of this to the page, as it were.
I am in a bit of a Catch-22 with a Dad issue, which I can only find amusing at this point. I received a letter from Medicaid to the effect that they received a change of address from the post office, listing my dad's address as mine. Even though for the past year they have retained the distinction that my dad resides at X address in New Hampshire, but his mail is sent c/o me, at X address in Massachusetts. Why this happened at all, and why now, I do not know, but you know that's going to be trouble somewhere down the line what with the different states and the rigid bureaucracies and all.
So: I call, and Medicaid tells me that actually they receive all their address change notifications from Social Security, not the post office, and that is all they know, and they cannot do a thing. So I call Social Security...and first of all, talk about your waiting on hold. Did you know that sometimes, Social Security will not even let you hold? The recorded lady will just tell you that the call volume is too high, and please try again later, and then CLICK, YOU'RE DONE??? Yeah. At any rate, eventually I get to speak to an actual real-live human, or at least the best simulation they can offer, and in order to confirm that it is okay to talk to me they need his date of birth, mother's maiden name, city of birth...oh shit. CITY of birth? For real?
So I get that and call back, and get through the script past city of birth, and then they are all "and his shoe size?" and I am like "huh?" and now I am getting testy, because dude could have told me I would need that the last time I called, and I ask them for the whoooole list of information that I need, and I collect it all, and call back, and give them the list, and one of the things that I need to tell them is the current address that statements are being sent to, which, ha-ha, is his last independent-living address, from over a year ago, oops. Except it's even better than that, because they were sending the statements to an address that is not actually the address that he was living at a year ago. They had the street number wrong. But my approximation of the address, and my general familiarity with all the other information, will not do, even though the lady clearly believes me and keeps saying encouraging things like, "You've almost got it...are you sure you don't remember a different number?" Um. How can I "remember" a wrong number?
So: I do not have the right wrong former address of my father's, and they cannot talk to me without it, and they cannot of course tell me what the wrong address is, because I am supposed to be able to tell it to them to verify my up-and-up-itude, except that I only know his actual, right, former address, which they do not have, and so on. I briefly considered calling and trying variations on the street number, but then figured that that would be like when you mistype your password too many times and get booted, except in this case "get booted" turns into "get visited by Federal agents," which doesn't sound like a lot of fun.
And with all this, we haven't even started working on the whole concept of how my dad resides at one address, but please send all his mail to me, because otherwise it will undoubtedly go to wherever all my dad's pants keep going at the nursing home, BUT, remember, the mailing address is not even in the same state as the residential address, so no sneaky changing tax rates or benefits, yeah? That should be fun.
I am trying not to think about why, when I was doing the Dad's taxes way back in 2004, I was able to get them to send the 1099 to me without all this nonsense, or why I got the 1099 (send to Dad, care of me, just like I asked) just fine this year, or why the 1099 transaction involved me sending them a copy of the guardianship papers, but in the latest round of calls I was informed that "Social Security does not recognize guardianship or powers of attorney," or, for that matter, why the address issue did not get some action during the whole 1099 thing in the first place. Because when I do that, things go a little fuzzy and my next thought is usually along the lines of high-powered rifles and martial arts training.
Hey, ha, hee-hee! Just kidding. Nice Federal agents. Love your work!
Posted by hilatron at June 8, 2005 11:05 AM